Those issues can and should be addressed individually, rather than as a nonsensical blanket "Men's Rights" concept that can be so easily turned into a misogynistic blame game, assuming that's not what it is by default in the first place.
Recent
guest posting from a blog I read on occasion:
[...] Once the study of women qua women had been firmly established in academic institutions, some theorists mostly feminist theorists or those heavily influenced by them rather naturally began to ask if the study of women qua women has yielded such positive fruits, then would an examination of men qua men yield similar fruits? While it was true that men had been the de facto focus of sociological and anthropological analysis for much of the history of the social sciences, they had, for the most part, been studied only in terms of their actions and effects on the world; they had never truly been studied as men. What did it mean to be a man? What is masculinity? How do particular behaviours come to be seen as masculine, and what does the valorization of those behaviours lead to? And thus was a whole new sub-discipline of gender studies born.
[...]
The study of men really took off with the arrival of a number of absolutely brilliant scholars in the field most notably R.W. Connell, Michael Kimmel and Michael Messner. Connells work Masculinities is the most-cited work in the entire field and an absolute must-read for students of gender studies. Messer and Kimmel only slight less so. Connells theory of masculinities radically altered the way in which gender theorists understood the process of becoming gendered beings. Alright, Ill admit that Judith Butler had more than a few things to say on the subject, but her writing was physically painful for me to read, alright? We all have our favourites, and Connell is mine. R.W. Connells concept of hegemonic masculinity made heavy use of intersectionality and her resultant theoretical lens posited that there is no such thing as a singular male gender; there are dozens of competing masculinities, arranged into complex hierarchies of dominance and subordination, and all of them subjugated by and measured against an articulation of masculinity that is culturally dominant and rigorously if subtly enforced. These competing forms of masculinity are intersected by multiple vectors of privilege and oppression which make the entire structure chaotic, violent, and ultimately self-destructive.
[...]
The point Im trying to make is that academic analyses of men and mens lives are becoming increasingly common in the social sciences, and a lot of the research that is done can (and does) fit seamlessly with feminist analyses of women and womens lives. The resultant body of data suggests that a better understanding of these sorts of social pressures can go a long way to helping men break out of the vicious cycles of toxic masculinity that threaten both themselves and everyone else. Patriarchy hurts everyone, and recognizing that can help men become better citizens and generally better people.
The Mens Rights Movement does nothing to help us. Contrary to their wild-eyed assertions that teh menz are the real victims in society, the data shows that while men have many, many problems, the vast majority of their issues still take place within a space of almost unparalleled privilege. No, men do not have it worse than women, PoCs or members of the LGBT communities. No, feminists are not out to destroy men or strip them of their hard-won rights. No, the struggle for recognition and an equitable share of the fruits of civilization is not a zero-sum game with men at the losing end! Men are not losing out to anyone; everyone else is merely asking to share the same rights and privileges that men have always possessed.
I thought it was a really great post. I think it's rather sad that people are not more aware that feminism has more to say about the issues facing men than the MRM does, though.
But I must admit that I myself have not read those books on masculinities (though I have come into contact with some of the ideas in various books and blog postings over the years) and it is a bit of a hole in my education. It's funny that he mentions Butler, because I first came to her ideas secondhand through CJ Pascoe's Dude You're A Fag which basically applies her thoughts about how we construct our gendered self in opposition to a "constitutive outside", which is constructed from various "abject identities." These "abject identities" consist of unacceptably (by social standards) gendered selves. In her interactional model this "abject identity" must be named in order to give it social power and create a "threatening specter." In her book, she identifies the "fag" as occupying this space as that "threatening spectre" in the California high school she performed her ethnographic survey.
... But I still haven't actually read Judith Butler firsthand.
